Warwickshire faces thousands of new homes
Warwickshire County Council is examining the detail of a Government commissioned study, which could mean thousands of additional homes in the county.
The Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners report suggests that there is sufficient land in the West Midlands to build 445,000 new homes over the next 18 years – a quarter more than the maximum amount proposed by the West Midlands Regional Assembly and supported by Warwickshire County Council and its partners in the Coventry Solihull Warwickshire sub-region.
The NLP Study proposes additional housing growth to be based on consideration of three options - ‘South-East Focus’; Spreading Growth’; Maximising Growth’.
All three have a heavy bias to providing more land for housing in locations that have traditionally been favoured by the market, in particular the Warwickshire Districts of Warwick, Rugby and Stratford-on-Avon and the metropolitan district of Solihull.
Depending on the scenario, additional growth ranges from totals of 12,500 to 19,500 dwellings for the Warwickshire districts and 5,000 to 13,000 additional dwellings for Solihull. (NB. These figures, it must be remembered, are on top of the WMRA Preferred Option proposals of 41,000 and 7,600 for Warwickshire and Solihull respectively).
Cllr Chris Saint, the county council’s Portfolio Holder for Economic Development and member (and past chair) of the Coventry Solihull Warwickshire local authority members’ forum, said: "This study’s findings clearly present a challenge to the CSW Sub-regional approach to the RSS Phase 2 Review - to which Warwickshire County Council has given strong support as it evolved over the past three years.
“We will be working with our sub-regional partners through the CSW Forum to present our view of these findings to the independent panel conducting the EiP of the Preferred Option next year.
“A report is scheduled to go to the county council’s Cabinet on 11 December to consider the advice of the CSW Forum on the issue. Until then, we will be keeping our powder dry!"